


wish upon a blue star

by RonnieSilverlake, TesIsAMess



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Gen, New ERA Birthday Reverse Big Bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonnieSilverlake/pseuds/RonnieSilverlake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TesIsAMess/pseuds/TesIsAMess
Summary: It was Jeffrey who suggested taking up a hobby.You’re going to go stir crazy without anything to do, Hank. Your grief will eat you up and you’re gonna eat your gun, and I’m not letting that happen. Do something meaningful with yourself. Cole wants you to live.-“Hello, my name is Connor,” the doll says. “I’m the son sent by the Blue Fairy.”
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 14
Kudos: 31
Collections: New ERA Discord: Reverse Big Bang





	wish upon a blue star

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the New ERA Birthday Reverse Big Bang! Concept and art was done by the wonderful [Tes](https://twitter.com/Tes_273). :p

The sky is clear and littered full of stars, the night Hank Anderson starts carving a wooden doll.

It’s a slow, careful process. He’s been making carvings and sculptures for a few weeks now; something he took up to pass the time after quitting his job as a police lieutenant. It’s a nice hobby—it lets him focus on something other than the myriad of dark thoughts constantly swirling in his head. It’s a mindless kind of focus, easy to get wrapped into.

It has been six weeks since he’s quit working, and eight weeks since his son died in a car accident. Hank is still sporting injuries from it: two cracked ribs, a broken knee that leaves him being unable to do much except sit, and a grief that has spilled over everything his life has ever comprised of.

It was Jeffrey who suggested taking up a hobby. Hank remembers that evening well enough; his best friend turned up on his doorstep three days after Hank had hobbled into the precinct on crutches to drop off his gun and badge. He remembers grabbing the first thing he could find and chucking it at the captain’s bald head—it was too soon, _so_ soon—only for Jeff to duck with ease and then fix him with a grim look. _You’re going to go stir crazy without anything to do, Hank. Your grief will eat you up and you’re gonna eat your gun, and I’m not letting that happen. Do something meaningful with yourself. Cole wants you to live._

Hank remembers that last part hitting especially hard. Not even because Jeff was talking about Cole so easily when Hank himself had trouble even _thinking_ about him—but because it was in that moment that he realized Jeffrey would not let him slip away from him, not even if they weren’t working together anymore.

It’s nice, sometimes, to be reminded of not being completely alone, even when hitting rock bottom.

So Hank drove to the nearest Home Depot and bought some planks and chisels and other knick-knacks. And then he began carving.

It helps a lot, most days. It’s repetitive, methodical. It makes him stop thinking; it makes the downhill slide slow down, sometimes even stop, at least temporarily. At the end of the day, Hank is still grieving. Still wants to stop existing a lot of the time.

He has carved a variety of small items; toys, mostly. Of course, they’re all for Cole—he lacquers them carefully, as if the toys will ever get to be played with.

Tonight, he begins carving something bigger.

Cole always loved wooden toys; Hank still has three buckets’ worth of building blocks in his garage. (He hasn’t packed up much of anything of his son’s belongings yet—couldn’t make himself do it.)

The doll has hair painted in brown lacquer, brown eyes, and four limbs that each move independently once Hank strings it up. He leaves it on the workbench when he goes to sleep, his heart a little lighter with another finished project.

* * *

“Connor.”

He wakes to a cool touch to his forehead, and when he opens his eyes, at first, all he sees is a shimmering blur of vivid blue. He blinks a few times, waits for his vision to adjust—it’s a woman in a dress that seems to be vibrating with colour, complimenting the streaks in her dark hair, the softness of her gaze.

“Hello,” she says gently. The tips of her fingers glow white as she raises them to his face, brushing gently against the unyielding wood. Connor blinks.

“Where am I?”

For a moment, she doesn’t reply; she simply continues her gentle smoothing of his features. Connor can feel muscles he does not possess loosening with each stroke, as if he is truly coming to life underneath her hand. His jaw works more fluidly the next time he attempts to form words, after she finally pulls away.

“Who are you?” he asks, and this time, she does answer.

“I am called the Blue Fairy.” She tilts her head, regarding him almost curiously. There is something in her eyes that makes him want to shrink back a little, even though she does not appear unkind at all. It just makes him feel like… she has high expectations of him. But maybe that’s just his imagination. “You may call me Amanda, if you wish.”

Connor notices that the rest of his limbs already move quite well; if this is how she woke him, she must have left his head for last. He tries his joints; he can move his shoulder, elbows, wrists, he can bend his knees and ankles. Under Amanda’s watchful gaze, he clambers off the workbench and does a squat.

“Do you know who created you?” Amanda asks then, and Connor thinks about this for a moment. He knows so little; his entire world is this one garage, stretching from the workbench at the wall to the door he’s never seen open. But somehow, he still knows.

“Hank. It was Hank.”

“Do you know why?”

Another pause. Connor takes some time to think about this, and in the meantime, he walks, slowly and carefully, to the garage door. He jumps up to be able to look outside through the small windows at the top, but all he can catch glimpses of are the stars in the night sky. “I think it’s because he’s sad?”

Amanda regards him coolly. The bottom edges of her dress shimmer when she turns towards him, like she’s not even really here, just a mirage. “Your father is very sad, Connor. He has lost something very precious.”

“Can I help him find it?”

That, Connor thinks, is probably the only important question here. From the tight-lipped smile Amanda gives him, he thinks she probably agrees, too.

“If you are good to him,” she says, and her edges blur even more, as if she is ready to dissipate into a bunch of stars any moment. “If you are brave, truthful and unselfish, you may both find happiness.”

Connor wonders why those qualities are the most important ones, but just as he suspected, she vanishes before he can ask.

* * *

Hank wakes to the distinct feeling of someone watching him. Call it a cop thing to have this kind of sixth sense; he opens his eyes, and nearly jumps out of his skin at the sight of _the wooden toy_ he made last night standing _on its own two feet_ next to his bed, watching him with a gaze Hank couldn’t read if his life depended on it.

“Hello, my name is Connor,” the doll says. “I’m the son sent by the Blue Fairy.”

The _what now?!_

Hank sits up like he’s pulled on a string, staring at it—him—did he say _Connor?_ —his mouth agape. “O…kay…?” he says after a long moment, trying to figure out if he’s still dreaming.

“She brought me to life for you. Because you were sad.”

The way the boy puts it so simply has Hank reeling. True, now that he thinks about it, it definitely feels like he’s made… _some_ kind of a wish—but he didn’t think it meant anything more than his usual wishes did; _I wish Cole was alive, I wish I died instead, please take me or give him back to me, please give me my son back._

Well, it seems, in a cruel twist of fate—or whatever kind of magical creature this fairy is—Hank did get **a** son, if not the one he is so desperately missing.

For a long moment, he regards the boy—Connor—with a scrutinizing look. He looks the same as he did last night; decidedly _wooden_ , but his eyes—his eyes look _alive_.

(Hank thinks of Cole’s eyes, the way he saw them last. He discards the thought into the deepest recesses of his mind a split second later, as he’s done with most of his thoughts lately.)

“All right,” he says, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and getting to his feet. “I’m gonna get some breakfast.”

Connor follows at his heel like an obedient puppy—at that thought, as if sensing it, Sumo joins them in the hall, nosing curiously at the boy’s face; Connor is so short that even at his full height, the St. Bernard almost towers over him. “This is Sumo,” Hank says. “He was Cole’s dog.”

He’s not sure why he says it, but against his expectations, Connor asks no questions.

* * *

In the next few weeks, this becomes somewhat of a pattern. Hank warms up to Connor’s presence fast; the boy is cheerful, livens up the place despite being, technically, a wooden toy that—Hank thinks—is moving and talking on some kind of magic. He asks a lot of questions, endlessly curious, but he never asks about Cole, even when Hank mentions him—as if he knows, somehow, that Cole is the source of Hank’s sadness.

Hank isn’t any less sad, truly. If anything, he feels a little worse, because it feels like he _should_ be less sad, and the fact that he isn’t makes him feel guilty. He tries his best to treat Connor like a son; it’s not as if Connor deserves any of this, it’s not like he asked to be made, or brought to life—that was Hank’s stupid, half-hearted wish, and now he must put up with the consequences.

At the end of the day, though, he struggles to think of the boy as a son, or even as _alive_ . It’s just magic—it’s not _real_ , right?

Part of it still feels real, though. The way Connor looks at him—even with his face made of wood, there’s an expressiveness to him that goes beyond the muscles he lacks. It’s in his voice laced with curiosity and warmth, and especially his gaze. Hank often finds himself at a complete loss of what to do with him. He can’t quite get used to the fact that this doll is supposed to be his child. On sleepless nights, he blesses and curses the magic that brought Connor to life in equal measure; he is grateful to not be alone, _almost_ happy to have someone like Connor around—but at the same time, he feels like this was thrust upon him when he didn’t really ask for it, that whoever this Blue Fairy is _must_ have known he didn’t _really_ want this—and to top it all off, he feels achingly guilty about the latter.

After all, this isn’t Connor’s fault. And all Connor wants—well.

* * *

“What do you want?” Hank asks Connor one day, his voice a little terse, albeit not unkind.

Connor halts in his tracks, giving Hank a look that he interprets as politely curious and confused. “What do you mean, Dad?”

Being called that is _still_ a punch in the gut, every time. Hank grits his teeth for a moment, then exhales in a long sigh. “I mean, you were brought to life by the Blue Fairy, right? So—what do you want to do with that life?”

Connor contemplates a little bit. “She said I am to make you happy,” he says, sounding hesitant, as if he knows this isn’t the answer Hank wants to hear. (He’s right about that, it really isn’t—and not only because it makes his heart _squeeze_ in his chest with pain.)

“Come here,” Hank says, his voice softening for a moment. He pats the couch next to him, and Connor comes, ever obedient. “Sit.” Connor does; his feet don’t reach the ground once his bottom is firmly on the cushion, and he swings them a little, giving Hank a small smile. “You came to be because I made a wish,” Hank says. “If you could have a wish of your own, and it could be anything, what would it be?”

Connor thinks about this so long, Hank thinks he might have just spaced out. Then finally, slowly, as if he’s thinking through each and every word individually, he says, “I’d want to be real.”

Hank isn’t sure what he expected, honestly.

“Connor,” he says gently, “you’re real enough. The Blue Fairy brought you to life, right? You’re alive—you’re good the way you are.”

After another (shorter) pause, Connor shakes his head. “I want to be a real boy,” he repeats, as if saying the same thing again will make Hank understand better. It doesn’t, of course, but the conversation feels somehow finished anyway. Connor hops off the couch, shoots Hank another odd, furtive look, and goes to play with Sumo.

* * *

Detroit is bitter in the cold. Even a few inches of snow makes it difficult for someone as small of stature as Connor to wade through it. He keeps to the more cleared roads for a while, picking his way through the quiet city in the dead of night.

He’s not fully sure where he is going. When he started out, he only had two thoughts: _leave_ , and _find Amanda_. Even putting the second thought aside for a moment, he knows he couldn’t stay a moment longer with Hank.

He’s grown to love him fast—it makes sense, he was made for this purpose, wasn’t he?—but the more he loved him, the more Hank’s pain hurt him, too. Connor has tried his best to help him be happy, to take that pain away, but no matter what he did, Hank just wasn’t any happier. He tried to pretend, whether for Connor’s sake or his own, Connor really doesn’t know, but Connor saw the truth.

Hank has expressive eyes; no matter what his mouth says, he cannot lie with his face.

Connor wishes, for the hundredth time, that he was real.

He has wished it many times, desperately and strongly, whispering it into his pillow and yelling it into the empty street when he was walking Sumo for his dad. He has wished it so that he could be a real son to Hank; he has wished it so he would have a better chance at doing what he was meant to do; he has wished it so that Hank would truly feel like he’s gotten a child, even if it’s not the child he wishes it was. (Connor knows who Cole is. He thinks maybe he’s always known.)

Right now, he wishes he was real just so he’d have the ability to cry.

* * *

The wrought iron gate towers over him so much, Connor feels infinitesimally small. Its hinges are covered in ice, but even if they weren’t, there would be no hope for his small frame to be strong enough to move it. Thankfully, there is a small enough gap for him to slip through, and he does so with some small difficulty, looking back over his shoulders as he does so.

What was once an amusement park stretches before him; now little more than rubble. Boarded up windows, crumbling buildings, streets buried in snow that nobody shovels away. Connor needs to find some kind of shelter, but this place gives him a sense of unease, almost dread; part of him wants to turn tail and run.

(Part of him misses his father, despite everything.)

He’s standing in front of the make-believe ‘inn’, wondering whether he could somehow get off the boards barring the entrance, or if he ought to break a window—when he feels a hand settle onto his shoulder. Connor startles so badly that his wooden limbs rattle, and they nearly give out beneath him, letting him topple into the snow. Except, the stranger’s hand goes from touching his shoulder gently to a firm grip, holding him upright until he gathers his composure enough to look up.

A kind face looks back at him. Warm eyes, full lips curling into a smile, flaming ginger hair. Somehow, Connor feels a little more at ease. “What are you doing here, all on your own?” the other asks. “You’ll freeze in this weather. Come with us.”

The park caretaker’s cabin is cosier than any of the decrepit buildings Connor has peered into. It is at the very least structurally sound; the walls don’t tremble when the door is closed behind him with a click. It’s no more than one single room, but there is a fireplace with a friendly little fire crackling in it, some posters on the walls showing the Cove in its full glory, and the caretaker—his name is Jerry, as Connor has learnt—ushers him to sit in the armchair near the fire to warm up.

“Kids used to love coming here,” Jerry says. “They would go on the rides, and we would light up the carousel for them. Of course, most of the rides are no longer working now. We miss them terribly. The children.”

Connor warms his fingers, though he instinctively knows not to lean too close to the fire, lest it catches on _him_ . He doesn’t say anything in return. His bitter thoughts are swirling still. _I’m not like them_ , he thinks.

“Do you want to ride?” Jerry says all of a sudden, and Connor is startled out of his own thoughts yet again, blinking up at him in confusion. “The carousel! We can make it work for you! Come, come!”

Confusion and irritation overtaken by a mild curiosity, Connor rises from his seat to follow the strange park caretaker.

The carousel is old, as dilapidated as the rest of the park—at least at first glance. Jerry beckons him closer, pointing to a handle that Connor can barely reach and certainly doesn't have the strength to pull. With an excited huff of laughter, Jerry wraps his own hands over Connor's, adding his strength to the mix, and the two of them pull the handle down with a creak that sends a cascade of shivers down Connor's wooden back—gives him pause a moment later, as this is a feeling he has never experienced before.

The carousel comes to life in front of his eyes. Lights begin to flicker then settle, strings of vivid colours, a faint echo of music that becomes stronger and stronger in seconds. The seats—some animals, some fantasy creatures, all of them pirate-themed, of course—begin their motion as the mechanism turns, casting passing shadows over the pair's upturned faces. 

Connor cannot deny that there is a warmth spreading in him that he has never felt before. Something that would clench his heart if he had one, that makes him feel like he might know what all the children who have been here in the past have felt.

“Go on, then,” says Jerry, his face splitting in a wide, toothy smile. He helps Connor onto the back of one of the seahorses, making sure his grip is secure before he steps back.

The carousel turns and turns, the music's ebb and flow in Connor's ear making him feel like he is occupying another reality entirely. For a few brief minutes, he can imagine it is a reality in which he is a real boy, beloved by his father. For these few minutes, until the music stops, he can almost believe it.

* * *

They say the Eiffel Tower is a few inches shorter in winter.

Ambassador Bridge looks just as horrifyingly tall as it's always been, and Hank feels his stomach lurch as he looks up at its peak, spotting the small figure perched atop.

Biting cold wind blows through the park as Hank approaches, blowing his jacket this way and that, making him feel chilled to his marrow.

Then again, maybe that has nothing to do with the wind at all, and everything to do with how he woke up alone in the house (except for Sumo), the wooden boy he loves as a child missing.

It's only been the better part of a day, but already Hank has questioned everything at least thrice, and returned to the conclusion that he's a horrible person just as many times. After the talk (if you could even call it that) the previous day, it's not that hard to put two and two together. It's so very late, but finally, Hank is realizing that his foolish wish had been doomed from the start—that being given a child as Cole's replacement has made it sure he could never _not_ think of his lost son, never truly think of Connor as just him, never truly love him independently.

Hank curses whatever the Blue Fairy is, whatever she wanted to accomplish. But most of all, he curses himself for not having been able to tear the clouds of his grief to shreds in time to treat Connor as he deserved.

Now that he's sitting up there, Hank is suddenly realizing he _cannot_ lose him too.

* * *

Connor feels stunned when Hank clambers up next to him, holding onto the railing with whitening knuckles. “Good grief,” Hank says—or rather, yells so his voice carries across the howling wind. “How did you get up here?”

“Same as you,” Connor says dryly, pointing to the service ladder. Hank makes the mistake of glancing down, and he blanches, grip tightening even further. “You didn't have to follow me here.”

“Of course I did,” Hank says hoarsely.

Connor contemplates this for a moment, and he finds that it earns the same feeling riding the carousel did. Something firm and white-hot. Something… almost nice.

“Why?” he asks tightly.

Hank reaches out for him with a hand. Before he'd reach Connor, though, he sways a little, and he quickly snatches his hand back, resuming his vice-like grip on the railing. He looks a little green in the face. “Because,” he says, and his voice drops so low Connor has to read the rest from his lips, “I need you to come home, son.”

Connor feels the words hit him in the chest. He hopes desperately that he read them right—but it's hard to believe. “It hasn't really felt that way,” he replies, his own voice going small and shaky. “But that's—that's okay,” he adds hastily.

He knows it's probably too late, now. _Brave, truthful and unselfish_ , right? Those were the conditions. Well, he'd—tried, he really had, but leaving was still the most selfish thing he could have done. It doesn't matter that it also took all his willpower. It doesn't matter that he is now telling Hank how he feels. It won't amount to anything.

Suddenly, Hank's palm is on his shoulder, squeezing. It feels grounding, like suddenly there _isn't_ hundreds of metres below them to the ground. For the first time, Connor thinks, _this is a really stupid place to have this conversation_. 

For the first time, he wants to go home.

“Connor,” Hank says hoarsely. “Son, I'm sorry. I should have—you deserve better.”

Connor has absolutely no idea what to say to this. He stares at Hank, watches his serious, pained expression, watches as the wind whips his hair in his face. He can feel it against his own head, too, but of course, there is nothing to move there.

He can barely believe what he is hearing. He doesn't _dare_ believe it truly.

“It wasn't right,” Hank says, and his grip on Connor loosens just the slightest bit. Rather than a desperate grasp, it's more of a gentle hold now, almost a caress. “I made a half-baked wish out of grief, and you paid the price for it. I'm so sorry for that, Connor.”

Connor's hand finds Hank's, settling on top of it. “I want to try again,” Hank says. “I know I don't get more wishes, but… maybe that's what I should have wished for from the start. Not to get my old life back, but to be able to do something good with the one I still have.”

It takes a moment for Connor to realize what is happening. All he is aware of is the numbness in his wooden limbs as he gives Hank a silent, jerky nod, and the way his vision blurs until he can't make out anything around him, his only anchors to reality remaining the gale and Hank's big, warm palm on his shoulder.

When the moisture of his tears drips down his chin onto his front, he glances down, surprised—this isn't something he has ever experienced before. He was not aware that he _could_ cry. But then he looks back up at Hank through the veil of his tears, and sees—something like awe.

Hank's hand comes away from his shoulder to brush against his cheek, and for the first time, Connor can _feel softness_.

He doesn't need the spark of deep blue vanishing in the corner of his vision to realize what happened.

The pair of them climb down from the top of the bridge together—that is, Hank picks his way down the ladder as carefully as humanly possible, while Connor has all four of his limbs wrapped around his torso, clinging for dear life, eyes squeezed shut. Slowly, painstakingly, they make their way back down. 

It is only when they're both on solid ground that Connor takes a moment to look at himself, to flex his fingers, to marvel at the softness of his own skin. When he looks back up at Hank, the expression on his dad's face is enough to make him cry all over again.

Sometimes, it's about getting what you want. And sometimes, it's about wanting what you already have.

**Author's Note:**

> Come poke us in the [New ERA Discord server](https://discord.gg/GqvNzUm)!


End file.
